- country:Finland
- style(s):Jazz
- label:Traumton Records
- artist posted by:Traumton Records
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Huge is the boom Scandinavian singers have
triggered in the past few years. Rebekka Bakken,
Kari Bremnes, Rigmor Gustafsson or Cæcilie Norby
– Names like these are currently luring German jazz
audiences into music halls and record stores,
zealously forming a new definition of contemporary
“Euro-Jazz” and effortlessly cutting its umbilical
cord from the US schools. Until now the Finnish
faction has been conspicuously missing on this new
top team of noble Nordic voices. Kristiina Tuomi
presents herself as an exciting and original vocalist
who puts Finland on the map of modern jazz song-
writing – and this with trans-European flair and
poetry from Poe to Shakespeare.
A “Tight-Rope-Walker” is what the title of Tuomi´s
debut album heralds, and the 27 year-old’s artistic
biography already reads very much like a balancing
act. As an autodidact, the daughter of a Finnish
mother and German father discovered music
relatively late, studying at the Free Arts University
in Berlin. From opera to jazz all the way over to pop
and dance-floor productions, this up-and-coming
artist quickly developed her talents. With Stefan
Goldmann, she romped in the realms of deep house
and electro, and advanced to a favourite on BBC
play lists with the Berlin electronic act „Paloma”. She
started up her Scandinavian indie-pop band by the
name of „Seazoo” with wandering fellow
countryman Kalle Kalima, by trade already guitarist
for Jimi Tenor or Tomasz Stanko. And just as her
clear, expressive, but at the same time sensitive
voice can be impressively effective over louder
beats, she is equally at home in an acoustic
ambient: The trio „So Weiss“ with Braunschweiger
saxophonist Susanne Folk and double-bass player
Roland Fidezius from Berlin, with its outstanding
German-English spoken-word put to music, is
evidence of this – and now her new three-piece
band as well, with which she recorded her first CD
under her own name.
A trans-European diagonal of a very special class
joins hands on “Tight-Rope-Walker”: Finland -
Germany – Portugal is the “axis of sound” for this
session, which took place in Hamburg´s Vagnsson
Studios.
As master of the keys, Berlin’s new discovery
Carsten Daerr takes charge. After a classical
musical education he embarked on an independent
path, allowing himself to be influenced by post-bop
master Kenny Kirkland, by Hancock or Metheny and
at the same time taking a wide terrain of inspiration
from the classics - from Schubert and Olivier
Messiahs all the way to Morton Feldman. He says
that he even mixes nature and city noises into his
sounds. His creative team-working began during
his jazz piano and composition studies at the
University of Arts (among others under Hubert Nuss
and Maria Schneider), and today he can boast
collaborations with countless greats of the guild,
among them Bobby McFerrin or Marc Wyand. Beside
his work in jazz, Daerr is also active as a composer
for New Music. „Berliner” originality instead of US-
fixed tradition-consciousness. Daerr manages to
make even the most adventurous changes sound
round, „casually original“ raves the Rolling Stone.
And the magazine Keyboards certifies Daerr’s
playing to have „enormously harmonic and pianistic
imagination which creates a new bridge between
European art, music and jazz.” „Tight-Rope-Walker“
lives quite significantly from Daerr’s flexible range
between abstract chord power and his gift of
melodic accompaniment.
The tremendously ever- singing, sometimes
springing, and then again earthy fundament is
provided by Carlos Bica. The Portuguese, elected
Jazz Musician of the Year 1998 in his homeland,
has been very well-known in international circles
since the debut of his trio Azul (with guitarist Frank
Möbius and drummer Jim Black) in the year 1996. In
his „Azul“ project he meshed jazz, rock and ethnic
sounds with the heritage of his home, but also
acquired merits in song-writing through his
cooperation with singer Ana Brandão. Bica has
played with many of the greats at home and
abroad, from Portugal’s vocal icon Maria João and
Fado singer Carlos Do Carmo, to stars of jazz like
Ray Anderson, Aki Takase or Kenny Wheeler.
Finally the versatility of Kristiina Tuomi’s vocal
power: She masters breathy ballad-like tones just
as much as a girlish-coquettish mood, and brilliant
is her ability to intensify from restrained to
powerfully expressive passages. The German-Finn
slips into many characters during her highly
diversified repertoire. This usually comes from
Carsten Daerr’s studio, using purely original
compositions as well as falling back on a
suspenseful literary spectrum. Solemn, stately tones
in Shakespeare put-to-music, a noise miniature
that paraphrases a Suzanne Vega song, echoes of
Bartók, flanked by two Poe poems that form a
tremendous brace around the opus with their
pensive character.
Without for even a minute allowing herself to copy
her singing Scandinavian sisters, Kristiina Tuomi
contributes original facets and multifariously new
impulses to that ever-so-popular Nordic-coloured
jazz of our day.